The Literary Enneagram: Characters FromThe Inside Out by Judith Searle

[CarpeDiem]

THE LITERARY ENNEAGRAM: CHARACTERS FROM THE INSIDE OUT (Metamorphous Press, 2001. ISBN 1-55552-107-
X. Trade Paperback. $22.00) Orders: 1-800-233-6277; Information: http://www.metamodels.com/
Enneagram is of unknown origin, it is recognisd that sufi were its unique Keepers. Brought by Gurdjieff.
[142847]369
character types:

1. Perfectionist, a critic, loving an order and neatness, and of solid principles. Authentic with himself and others. He feels ethically superior and wants to be beyond the criticism. He works to improve his environment.

2. Obliging, altruistic, generous, affective, affectionate, cozy, nice, and sensitive: he wants to feel needy and valued. He values the freedom very much. Sociable. When he faces the others, wants reciprocity.

3. He wants to receive attention and to be admired. He thinks about how to preserve the proper image. Sincere acceptance of the self. Capacity and efficacy. Attainment with patience, with authenticity and objectivity. Experience.

4. Originality and artistic intuitive creativity. Expression and intuitive artistic creativity. Equanimity. He is educated and comprehensive. It takes care of his emotional needs before attending to any other matter.

5. A perceptive observer. Reserved, with awake and effective mind. Omniscience. Displays attention to defend himself from the environmental threats, he analyzes the environment in adequate moments and with astuteness. Capable of disinterest [absence of affection of interest, non-involvement].

6. Loyal and cooperative: reliable, kind, cozy. He looks for approval of others, security. He lives in constant challenge of a battle: he fights against disharmony, which turns out to be distressing to him. Brave in his commitment.

7. Epicurean character. He wants to be happy and to live the life well. He destroys vehemently [with impetuous force guided by an impulse and] does it so that the others enjoy. [[Distruta vehementemente y hace que los demas disfruten.]] Practical sense of productiveness in Eternal Present and in his daily work.

8. Proper control. Authority. He is guided by his self-interest, without any objection in destroying. Great sense of the established societal norm, of the judiciary norms, of the "letter of the Law".

9. Conciliator, mediator. solicit, kind. He wants to be unnoticed: to preserve his peace. Sense of being an arbiter. Respect to the opinion of others. Capacity to love. Action in synthony [symphony – synchrony]. Impartial but unconformist.

from Judith Searle site: http://members.aol.com/jsearle479/intro.html and therein:

An acknowledged expert on the Enneagram, she has published many articles in Enneagram Monthly, the premier journal in the field, including "The Latitude and Longitude of Enneagram Fixations," "Sexuality, Gender Roles and the Enneagram," "The Four-Point-On Theory and a Six Organization in Distress," "Jottings from a One's Journal," "Three Culture Meets Six Culture: A Hollywood Story," "Riso/Hudson Part I Training," a review of the 1996 edition of Personality Types by Don Riso with Russ Hudson, "From Passion to Virtue with Claudio Naranjo," "The Gap at the Bottom of the Enneagram," "Literary Exemplars: Scarlett O'Hara as a Three," "Story Genres and Enneagram Types," and "A Poet Views Her Work Through the Lens of the Enneagram." Some of these are available in the "Articles" section on this site.
Judith Searle presents examples from popular films that show you how to identify the nine basic types of people and see why they react as they do to common life situations. Understanding the hidden fears, desires, and motivations of others helps us connect with them in positive ways and avoid frustrating negative patterns.

STORY GENRES AND ENNEAGRAM TYPES by Judith Searle
http://members.aol.com/jsearle479/3.html
One

The basic One story genre is the "moral hero" drama, in which the protagonist risks his reputation, his status, and even his life to ally himself with an ethical principle. Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, A Man for All Seasons, The Crucible, Gandhi, and An Enemy of the People. Related One genres are the lawyer story, in the which the protagonist is a lawyer (such as The Verdict, Witness for the Prosecution, Anatomy of a Murder, The Accused, and the novels of Richard North Patterson) and the police story, in which the law enforcement professional is the hero who tries to restore the moral order to society. Examples of the police story include The Silence of the Lambs, The French Connection, Serpico, and Prince of the City.
Rules of One story genres
Here, in summary are the unwritten rules of one "moral hero" dramas, including lawyer stories, and police stories:
The One protagonist is driven by the need to restore the moral order to society through his actions and example.
The One protagonist is unpretentious, serious, concerned with what is right.
The One protagonist trusts his inner compass as a gauge of right action and will stand up for what he believes even if everyone else is against him.
The One protagonist makes every effort to avoid conflict, but if he feels his cause is just he will put his body on the line in protest and even die for the cause if necessary.
The One protagonist, once engaged in a crusade, cannot be deterred.
The One protagonist, while critical of others, holds himself to the highest standard of all.
The One protagonist expects his loved ones to adhere to his standards and is capable of severing his ties with them if they fail to do this.
The One protagonist sees the realities of life clearly, feels deeply about moral questions and struggles to communicate to others the importance of ethical standards in society.

Four

The basic Four story genre is the melodrama, in which there is a clear-cut division between good and evil, heroes and villains. The main object of the melodrama is to arouse emotions in the most direct way possible. Such films as Casablanca, Rebecca, Rain, The Letter, Back Street, and Mildred Pierce are clear examples.
Stories of love and loss are also part of the Four genre, and may overlap, as Casablanca does, with the basic melodrama category. Other examples of the love-and-loss story include The Bridges of Madison County; Brief Encounter; Wuthering Heights; Now, Voyager; and Waterloo Bridge.
Stories of doomed love?love and death?also exemplify the Four attitude to life, and examples include Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Camille, Sophie's Choice, Interview with the Vampire, and Jules and Jim.
Stories of artists who give their lives for their art (as in
Lust for Life and The Fountainhead) also belong in the Four category.
Rules of Four story genres
We might sum up as follows the unwritten rules of Four story genres such as melodramas, love-and-loss stories, and love-and-death stories:
The Four protagonist is driven by a need to focus on his deep and authentic feelings.
The Four protagonist is self-aware, self-absorbed, passionate, and unhappy.
The Four protagonist is dominated by his feelings and driven to express them in love and/or art.
The Four protagonist is comfortable with longing and seeks to maneuver his life situation so as to perpetuate this state.
The Four protagonist is uncomfortable with lengthy periods of contentment or love affairs that threaten to end happily.
Four stories generally have unhappy endings involving loss and/or death.
The Four protagonist is the most likely of all Enneagram types to commit suicide over love.

Two

Romance, the basic Two genre, is constructed around the ups and downs of a couple's relationship, with the story generally ending in marriage.
The romantic comedy is a staple among film genres, and examples include When Harry Met Sally, Bull Durham, Much Ado About Nothing, Sleepless in Seattle, It Happened One Night, Emma, and Cold Comfort Farm
Romance novels?stories of love and romance that end in marriage?are a perennially successful category in bookstores.
Two genres also include the battle-of-the-sexes story: a black version of the romantic comedy in which the struggle for power between the partners may end with one or both of them dead. The link to Eight is obvious in such films as Body Heat and War of the Roses.
Rules of Two story genres
We might sum up as follows the unwritten rules for Two story genres including romantic comedies, romance novels, and battle-of-the-sexes stories:
The Two protagonist is driven by a need to be loved and appreciated.
The Two protagonist is empathetic, helpful, and outgoing.
The Two is extremely skillful at nurturing friendships as well as more intimate connections.
Sexual attraction is a strong component of Two stories.
The Two takes pride in his power to seduce others, and his seductiveness sometimes makes others feel used and/or manipulated.
Two stories reveal the power struggle underlying the search for romance. (Note the link to Eight.)
In Two stories there are many obstacles to the romance, beginning with the lovers' initial dislike of each other.
The Two story is concerned with the lovers' struggle to maintain individuality while becoming deeply attached to another person.
Two stories generally have happy endings: the lovers commit to each other.

Eight

Eight genres all involve a strong element of action, with the western exemplifying this type's basic story. Classic films in this genre include Red River, The Searchers, Stagecoach, High Noon, Shane, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.
The war story (Saving Private Ryan, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, Platoon) is another basic Eight genre.
Other Eight genres include the action-adventure story (Rambo, Dirty Harry, Eraser, Die Hard) and the Mafia story (The Godfather; GoodFellas)
Rules of Eight story genres
We might sum up as follows the rules for Eight story genres such as westerns, war stories, action-adventure stories, and Mafia stories:
The Eight protagonist is driven by a need to be dominant over others.
The Eight protagonist must demonstrate an appetite for physical confrontation.
The Eight is basically a loner, uncomfortable with close relationships.
The Eight's courage must be tested in the course of the story through situations that put him in extreme physical jeopardy.
The Eight protagonist never retreats from a fight with a strong opponent.
The soft heart under the Eight's tough exterior must be revealed at some point during the story.
The goal or cause for which the Eight protagonist risks his life must be worthwhile; he must not become sidetracked in trivial conflicts.
The Eight protagonist's personal passion and tendency to excess are restrained by his sense of justice and his good heart.
The Eight never inflicts damage on those obviously weaker than himself.

Five

The basic Five story genre is horror?a vast field in which all sorts of monsters and creatures lurk in the dark, spring up from murky waters and steamy swamps, are summoned from beyond the grave, or arrive from outer space. Examples include The Shining, Salem's Lot, The Last House on the Left, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Wolf Man.
Science fiction, another Five genre, deals with imaginary journeys, imaginary worlds and societies presented in rational scientific terms. Examples include 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fantastic Voyage , War of the Worlds, Planet of the Apes, and Blade Runner.
Sci-fi/horror is a common combination of Five genres, exemplified by Alien, Godzilla, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Fly, , and The Terminator.
Five genres also include such black comedies as Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange.
Rules of Five story genres
We might sum up as follows the unwritten rules of Five story genres such as horror, science fiction, sci-fi/horror and black comedy:
The Five protagonist uses her mental faculties to cope with an irrational and threatening world.
The Five protagonist is intelligent, observant, and unemotional.
The Five protagonist is brilliant at solving scientific problems.
The Five protagonist keeps a cool head when others are hysterical.
The Five protagonist mistrusts emotions and is basically a loner.
Through her brainpower the Five destroys or controls the irrational force or being that is threatening everyone.
The Five does not seek leadership but can be decisive and commanding when forced by circumstances to take over the role.
Five stories are basically survival stories; the Five protagonist survives through her intelligence and coolheadedness.

Seven

The basic Seven genre is the adventure story. This Seven genre is distinct from the Eight action-adventure genre because Seven stories emphasize the enjoyable and exciting aspect of physical challenge. Examples of the Seven adventure story include the James Bond films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (and most other "buddy movies"), Peter Pan, Tom Jones, Robinson Crusoe, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.
The sci-fi/adventure composite, which is also a Seven genre, includes such films as Star Wars, Star Trek, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Cocoon, and Back to the Future.
Travel stories such as Around the World in 80 Days and Gulliver's Travels also belong in the Seven category.
Rules of Seven story genres
We might sum up as follows the unwritten rules for Seven story genres such as adventure, sci-fi/adventure, and travel stories:
The Seven protagonist is driven by an appetite for adventure which insures that his life remains constantly challenging and exciting.
The Seven protagonist is reckless, imaginative, bold, and charming.
The Seven protagonist takes pride in his "bad boy" (or "bad girl") image.
The Seven protagonist is generally a highly intelligent bon vivant who enjoys good food, good drink, good companionship and numerous lovers.
The Seven's tendency toward self-indulgence limits his capacity for commitment to either a person or a principle.
To the Seven protagonist motion equals progress and danger equals fun/excitement.
The Seven protagonist's recklessness never leads to death, maiming, or even serious injury.
The Seven story moves episodically from one adventure to the next with little change in the protagonist's character over the course of the story. Seven genres generally lack a distinct character arc.

Three

The basic Three genre is the success story, in which the protagonist goes from rags to riches through hard work, alertness, ambition, honesty, and timely help from powerful patrons. Examples of this genre include the Horatio Alger stories, such as Struggling Upward, and such films as Jerry Maguire and Top Gun. The Three genre also includes the imposter story, in which the protagonist, doubting the adequacy of his real self to gain the approval of the people he needs to survive, creates a false image. Such stories as Glengarry Glen Ross, Sommersby, White Men Can't Jump, and The Great Imposter exemplify this category. Combinations of these two aspects can be seen in such stories as The Great Gatsby and Working Girl
Rules of Three Story Genres
We might sum up as follows the unwritten rules of Three success stories and imposter stories:
The Three protagonist is driven by the need to be seen as successful.
The Three protagonist has clear goals and is willing to work hard to achieve them.
The Three protagonist is a star performer, one who rarely thinks of giving others credit for their contributions.
In the course of the story, the Three protagonist pretends to be something she is not in order to achieve her goal.
At a crucial point the Three protagonist receives help from a powerful mentor.
The Three's problems with intimate relationships must be acknowledged at some point in the story.
The Three protagonist's definition of what constitutes success changes in the course of the story.
By the end of the story, the Three protagonist finds a new balance between love and work.

Six

The basic Six genre is the thriller, a suspense story centered around pursuer and pursued. Examples include North by Northwest, Three Days of the Condor, Marathon Man, Cape Fear, and The Fugitive.
Rules of Six Story Genres
We might sum up as follows the unwritten rules of all Six genres, including the thriller, the spy story, the labor drama , and the Six brand of "fear" comedy:
A Six protagonist may appear personally insecure and vulnerable (phobic) or rebellious and confrontative (counterphobic). In either case, the person is driven by fear.
Phobic Six protagonists get drawn into danger despite strong efforts to avoid it.
Counterphobic Six protagonists provoke confrontation as a way of proving their courage: "The best defense is a good offense."
A Six protagonist's courage must be tested in the course of the story.
Six protagonists survive ever-escalating dangers primarily through their alertness, resourcefulness, and ability to engage others as allies.
Allies play a crucial role in Six stories, either through their support or their betrayal of the protagonist.
"Whom can I trust?" is a central issue for the Six protagonist.
The Six protagonist has an ambivalent relationship with Authority.
The most important virtue for a Six is loyalty.

Nine

The basic Nine story genre is the fantasy, which is involved with the supernatural, the representation of imaginary animals, and/or the visualization of dreams. Examples include The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, It's a Wonderful Life, ET: The Extraterrestrial, Harvey, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Magical realism, another Nine genre, includes stories involved with marvelous and impossible events that occur in what otherwise purports to be a realistic narrative. This category is exemplified by the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.
Sword-and-sorcery stories (such as The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and Excalibur) also fall into the Nine genre, as do most fairy tales (such as "Sleeping Beauty").

The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz, originally a book by L. Frank Baum, is best known in the film version starring Judy Garland. At the beginning of this beloved fantasy story, we see Dorothy living on a farm in Kansas with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. No one has much time for the young girl, and she is left to her own devices. She daydreams about a fantasy place "over the rainbow." A big twister comes up, and she is knocked unconscious by a window frame blown into her bedroom. She dreams the house is lifted from its foundation by the wind and lands in Oz.
Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, appears and says Dorothy has freed the Munchkins from the Wicked Witch of the East, who was crushed under Dorothy's house when it landed.
The Wicked Witch of the West appears and wants her dead sister's ruby slippers. When Glinda arranges for the slippers, which have magical powers, to go to Dorothy, the Wicked Witch vows revenge. Dorothy wants to get home, and Glinda advises her to walk to Oz and consult the Wizard. On the road Dorothy acquires three companions: a Scarecrow (Seven) who hopes the Wizard will be able to give him some brains, a Tin Woodsman (Two) who wants the Wizard to give him a heart, and a Cowardly Lion (Six), who hopes to acquire some courage.
They survive several attempts by the Wicked Witch to destroy them, arrive at the Emerald City, and finally get into the chamber of the Wizard, whom no one has ever seen. There is a big stage effect of smoke, and they hear the impressive voice of the Wizard telling them that before he will grant their wishes they must prove their worthiness by bringing him the broomstick of the Wicked Witch. They go into the enchanted forest, and the Wicked Witch instructs her army of winged monkeys to bring back Dorothy and her dog. The Witch still wants the ruby slippers. But they won't come off Dorothy's feet, and the witch decides she'll have to kill Dorothy to get them.
Toto escapes, finds the others in Dorothy's group, and leads them back to the Witch's castle and the room where Dorothy is being held. The Woodsman breaks open the locked door with his ax. But the Witch corners them before they can get out the front door and sets fire to the Scarecrow. Dorothy grabs a bucket of water and throws it on him. In the process, some of the water gets on the Wicked Witch, who melts away. The four of them go back to the Wizard with her broomstick, and he tells them to come back tomorrow. But Toto pulls aside a curtain, and they see a man running all the machinery that creates the impressive stage effects. They realize the whole thing is an illusion (the Wizard being a Three), and they won't get the things they seek, after all. But the Wizard gives the Scarecrow a diploma, which attests to his brains, and once he believes he has brains, he does. The Lion, says the Wizard, is suffering from disordered thinking. All he needs to attest to his courage is a medal, and the Wizard produces one. The Tin Woodsman, who needs a heart, is given a testimonial: "A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others." (Which might be the Two's motto.)
The Wizard plans to take Dorothy back to Kansas in the balloon he arrived in years ago. But once they are ready to go, Toto jumps out of the balloon basket, Dorothy runs after him, and the balloon takes off without her. Dorothy is in despair of ever getting home, but Glinda appears and tells her she has always had the power to go home. All she needs to do is close her eyes, click the heels of her ruby slippers together three times and think three times, "There's no place like home." She wakes up in her bedroom, thrilled to be home, and vows never to leave again.
Rules of Nine story genres
Here, in summary, are the unwritten rules of Nine story genres, including fantasy, magical realism, sword-and-sorcery stories and fairy tales:
The Nine protagonist is driven by the need to be connected with familiar people in familiar surroundings.
The Nine protagonist is underappreciated by herself and by loved ones.
The Nine protagonist has little ambition beyond survival and "getting home."
The Nine protagonist never seeks adventure or risk in real life, but has a vivid imagination and enjoys daydreaming.
Supernatural, magic and/or mystical elements are often important in Nine stories.
The Nine protagonist responds to events rather than initiating action. ï The Nine protagonist's will is tested in the course of the story. Events force her into action and she acquits herself well.
By the end of the story, the Nine protagonist comes to a new appreciation of home and family. And the Nine is appreciated more fully by others.

Many writers on the Enneagram have pointed out contrasts, connections and complementarities between the symmetrical left and right halves of the diagram, and my understanding of the system owes much to their observations. Even more intriguing to me is the lack of symmetry between the top and bottom halves, with the Nine point at the top of the figure directly opposite the gap at the bottom between Four and Five, which is the largest physical space between any two adjacent points on the diagram. What are we to make of this imbalance? I ask myself. In what way does Nine represent the complement or opposite of the open space?
Most commentators on the Enneagram of personality agree that the Nine point represents a combination of the other eight fixations or styles. If we say that each of the points represents a strategy and the Nine point represents a combination of these strategies, then what threat are all these defenses designed to counter? It seems to me that the gap at the bottom of the diagram must represent the void. It has been here with us all along, hiding in plain sight.
Mystics, poets, novelists, psychologists and philosophers have characterized this emptiness at the heart of human existence in various ways: "the hole," "existential anxiety," "the silence," "the abyss," the "dark night of the soul," "absolute zero," "death." When Joseph Conrad at the end of his classic novella Heart of Darkness writes about "the horror," it is perhaps this vision of ultimate nothingness he has in mind.
So terrifying is this sense of emptiness underlying our lives that each of us has to devise a way of denying it, inventing for ourselves an identity, a form of provisional Being to counter the ultimate Nothingness. In a sense, we are like children inventing various strategies to distract ourselves from the threat of the bogeyman.
Distilled to their essence, the possible defenses against the specter of nonexistence are limited; they number nine in all:

One says, "If I can make myself and everything around me perfect, maybe I will be safe."
Two says, "If I can make others love me and depend on me, maybe I will be safe."
Three says, "If I can establish a public image of myself as a successful person, maybe I will be safe."
Four says, "If I can make friends with the darkness and become a connoisseur of my own pain, maybe I will be safe."
Five says, "If I can keep my mind focused on grasping the world's complexities, maybe I will be safe."
Six says, "If I can stay alert to all possible dangers and find trustworthy allies, maybe I will be safe."
Seven says, "If I can distract myself with pleasure and avoid thinking about the threat, maybe I will be safe."
Eight says, "If I can intimidate and dominate others, maybe I will be safe."
Nine says, "If I can keep an open mind about all possible strategies, maybe I will be safe."

In each of these statements, the "maybe" represents the chink in our best suit of armor. Shakespeare in his play Richard II gives an eloquent summary of this aspect of the human condition:

...for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antick sits
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and killed with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit
As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humoured thus
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle-wall, and farewell king!
(III, ii, 155)

The strongest clue to the nature of the empty space at the bottom of the diagram lies in what is directly opposite it: the peaceable kingdom of Nine, in which much energy is devoted to denying the negative aspects of life. For Nine the combination of all eight strategies leads to a kind of immobilization that makes me think of the myriad thin strings, each in tension, that immobilize Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. This immobilization-in-tension serves as a living counterpoint to the immobilization-in-lack-of-tension that we see in death.
Several analogies may be useful in discussing the nature (and necessity) of this essential opposition/complementarity between the Nine "all that is" and the ultimate nothingness. Certainly it is intriguing to note the parallel with the zero/sum or zero/one aspect of modern mathematics, which many writers have observed is the basis for the internal structure of the Enneagram diagram (in terms of the way the directions of the arrows relate to common patterns of human psychodynamics). Figure/ground and yang/yin also have interesting resonances with the Nine/gap relationship.
Two further analogies I find especially useful are the connections and complementarities between sound/silence and light/darkness. In a sense, the darkness of the empty space between Four and Five provides the essential context for viewing the spectrum of light in the nine Enneagram points. Each of the points One through Eight has a skewed view of reality (as if seeing reality illuminated by light of a particular color, so that it is not possible for any of these points to view reality in its true aspect). Directly opposite the absolute darkness of the gap is the Nine's white light, which combines all the colors of the other eight points. The Nine, seeing with "equal eye," is so dazzled that the image of reality dissolves in light and cannot be focused on clearly. So Nine's vision of the truth is ultimately just as distorted as that of the other eight types.
To use the analogy of sound, we may say that points One through Eight play a melody in different musical keys, with Nine playing the same tune in all keys at once; at the bottom of the diagram, in opposition to this flood of dissonant sound, is silence.
Both light and music have a relationship to rates of vibration (motion), with the gap between Four and Five representing absolute stillness, which may be what T.S. Eliot was referring to when he wrote about "the still point of the turning world." His image of the center of a turning wheel also resonates with the circularity of the Enneagram diagram.
Just as light is inconceivable without darkness and sound is inconceivable without silence, so life--in its nine basic aspects as charted by the Enneagram--is inconceivable without death. The gap at the bottom of the Enneagram diagram is, in a sense, the key to its deepest resonance. It is paradoxically the source of both the ultimate horror and the ultimate meaning in our lives.
It is possible to see the Enneagram figure as a stylized human body (in a loose relationship to Leonardo's famous drawing), with the head at Nine and legs at Four and Five. If we follow the implications of this idea, the gap is, in a very real sense, the anus at the bottom of the world through which we all must ultimately be expelled. But it can also be seen as the birth canal through which we all enter. Stanislav Grof, among others, has pointed out the psychological similarity between the classic near-death experience and the experience of birth--both of which often involve memories or images of moving through a tunnel toward a source of light.
The Enneagram, viewed in this context, is a kind of geometric rendering of the only living creature that knows the inevitability of its own death.
In view of this opposition between life and death at the heart of the diagram, it is possible to see in a different context the common problems that various commentators on the Enneagram have observed at points Four, Five and Nine.
I would suggest that Four and Five, the two types that flank the gap, in a sense do not have wings to each other so much as each has one wing to the ultimate darkness. Both these types are notable for their problems with identity. Four solves the problem by defining its identity in its capacity for feeling, while Five defines its identity in its capacity for thought. But both are vulnerable, in their pathological levels, to a perceived "loss of self," a special relationship with the abyss.
In the case of Four, there is a strong affinity with the dark places, as we see, for example, in Keats's "Ode to a Nightingale":

. . . for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain . . . .

I would suggest that Four actively seeks connection with the darkness as a way of "pumping up" feelings, then uses those heightened feelings as evidence of authenticity (and identity): "I am my feelings; look how strong and deep they are!"
Five is as preoccupied with the void as Four, but Five's attitude is one of aversion, visible in the works of writers in the "horror" genre from Edgar Allan Poe to Stephen King. The last stanza of Robert Frost's "Desert Places" can serve as a succinct example of the Five perspective:

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

In contrast to Four, Five is fleeing from the panic engendered by the emptiness, trying to shape thoughts into a coherent system that might constitute an identity: "I am my thoughts; look how logical and reassuring they are!"
In a sense, Nine is as vulnerable to a loss of self as Four and Five, but Nine's problem arises from the reverse situation: "flooding" rather than "emptiness." One might say that Nine lives across the street from the abyss, while Four and Five live next door to it. Or, to put the comparison in a Buddhist context, we might say that the Four has a craving for the void, the Five an aversion to it, the Nine ignorance (or confusion) about it.
All of which is not to suggest that Four, Five, and Nine have any more or less insight into ultimate truth than the rest of us--only that their particular problems may be clarified by seeing them in the "light" of the darkness at the bottom of the diagram.
Interesting as it is to observe particular points in relation to the gap at the bottom of the Enneagram, I find it even more intriguing to speculate about the implications of the gap as it relates to a broad range of human systems.
I believe it is possible to see the range of possibilities within each category of system as fitting the template of the nine points (nine basic strategies to deal with the void). It seems evident that all religions have been devised by human beings as a response to the fact of mortality, and it would be an interesting exercise to lay out the world's belief systems on the Enneagram diagram. I believe the same is true of other systems such as philosophy, psychology, and government.
As I see it, the Enneagram diagram is not only a template for all human systems, it is also unique in the way it addresses the fundamental question of why we are driven to devise systems in the first place. In this sense, once we recognize the position of the void as a key element of the diagram, the Enneagram can serve as a kind of Unified Field Theory of human systems.
As Bertrand Russell (a probable Five who understood philosophical systems as well as anyone who ever lived) put it, "Only upon the firm foundation of unyielding despair can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."

[...]I've observed that individuals commonly feel a strong affinity with people of the Enneagram point that is four points clockwise around the diagram from their own. Thus for myself as a One there is a special affinity with Five--a Perfectionist's admiration for the Observer's coolness, perspective, and command of intellectual resources. This affinity does not seem reciprocal, however. Fives appear to have more rapport with their own Four-Point-On, the Nine (who of all the Enneagram points is least likely to intrude on the Five's fiercely guarded privacy). But the Nine, rather than reciprocating the Five's interest, is more focused on the Four (since merging with the Four's depth of feeling allows Nine to feel focused and authentic). Again, there is a lack of reciprocity, and Four's most intense attraction is to Eight (whose daring and sexual aggressiveness are a powerful lure for the self-dramatizing Four). Eight, however, feels more affinity with Three (whose effectiveness in the world the power-centered Eight respects). Three feels more connection with Seven (whose bright ideas Three can co-opt and commercialize), while Seven connects more with Two (the Helper devoted to supporting and grounding Seven's visionary flights of ideas). Two finds a special appeal in Six (the insecure and fearful person in need of the support that Two needs to give). Completing the roundelay, Six feels a strong attraction to One (not surprising, since for the Six issues of trust and authority are central, and the One is scrupulous and respectful of others' boundaries).
The lack of a natural reciprocity between points fuels a kind of perpetual-motion machine that is a model for life itself. This Enneagram version of La Ronde might also be aptly titled The Divine (or Human) Comedy. [...]

http://members.aol.com/jsearle479/sex.html

http://members.aol.com/jsearle479/inside.html

http://members.aol.com/jsearle479/2.html

don't know about you, but i'm goin to tell you what are frases 6-8 on page 123 very soooon!